UConn Quits Against Louisville

February 07, 2012|Jeff Jacobs

LOUISVILLE — If you want be to be grossed out and enraged, UConn fans, we can rant about how UConn quit in the second half Monday night. We can rant about how Louisville got the Huskies to throw up the dirty white flag in the final 20 minutes.

How the Cardinals got the Huskies to surrender 11 second-half turnovers, persuaded the Huskies not to box out, persuaded them to leave open shooters for seven second-half threes and eventually persuaded them to give up their entire spirit in what would turn into the worst regular-season loss in nine years.

We can rant about how a Big East team on the uptick stole the heart of a team on a downswing with a 30-point rout that dawdled to an 80-59 final. We can rant about how the 21,804 fans at KFC Yum! Center got rocking, how the Huskies ran for cover and how associate coach George Blaney said he hopes his team was "embarrassed" by that second half.

Jeremy Lamb, who has had trouble hitting anything recently, agreed that Blaney hit the nail on the head with the "embarrassed" statement.

So go ahead, UConn fans, and curse everything in sight today. You have rarely been acquainted with a team that loses five of six games. And with coach Jim Calhoun out indefinitely with spinal stenosis, a spinal condition that could jeopardize his Hall of Fame career, you have every right to be emotional about the present and uncertain about the future.

We cannot say for sure if this is the 15th round for Calhoun, but we always have been adamant that he would go the entire 15. And on this night, sitting in his Pomfret home, he must also have felt anger with the way his team went down in the eighth round and never got back up.

Yet here's a less emotional, more analytical point to consider. If UConn doesn't do something about its offense, it's going nowhere. The ball movement is not good. The inside-outside game seems nonexistent.

We will not dissolve into a Kemba Walker treatise. Nor will we overlook the fact that there are some games remaining in which the Huskies will be able to slog out a win with more elbow grease than they showed in the second half. Certainly Andre Drummond will not play any worse than he did in this game. That's impossible.

Yet the Huskies will not win anything serious if they do not repair an offense that, frankly, stinks right now. OK, maybe the Huskies were never as good as being picked co-favorites along with Syracuse in the Big East preseason poll. But surely they are better than these offensive stinkers against Tennessee and Georgetown and Louisville.

A look at the shot chart in this game is alarming. UConn hit two shots beyond 10 feet in the first half. Shabazz Napier hit a jumper. Alex Oriakhi hit one. That's it. UConn was 0-for-7 on threes. Blaney praised the effort in the first half. The Huskies outscored Louisville 16-10 in the paint, outscored Louisville 7-2 on second-chance points and trailed only by one 18 minutes into the game.

"But guys deflate when their shot doesn't go in, no matter how many times you tell them don't worry about it and play great defense," Louisville coach Rick Pitino said. "No matter what level you are at, people play with more energy when the ball goes in the net."

Yet the emotional stuff doesn't explain Lamb, one of the most beautiful shooters in the nation, being scoreless at halftime and shooting 10-for-37 the past three games. The emotional stuff doesn't fully explain Napier's shooting 4-for-33 in the past four games.

Lamb finally hit the Huskies' first three-pointer 3:12 into the second half, but the Huskies didn't hit another shot beyond 10 feet until Ryan Boatright hit two threes in the final 3:39 when his team was down by 28 points. After Napier missed one shot by three feet early in the second half, the fans taunted him and then other Huskies with, "Air-ball!" even before they shot. Yes, that's embarrassing.

"It tells us we're not running offense," Blaney said. "That we're settling either for quick things or not moving the ball quickly enough. We're not staying with things we're trying to do. Any time you play Rick's teams, that 2-3 matchup [zone] or whatever you want to call it, it's always a good defense. Quite honestly, I'm not convinced it's as good as it usually is. I thought it was more our offense than it was their defense."

Those quick shots led to quicker run-outs and second-half disaster.

"We spent an incredible amount of time the last couple of days on the offense to make sure we stayed in it. We got out of it pretty quick. I'm just really, really concerned how we're playing offensively. It's really the key issue."

You watch Peyton Siva, who shot no better than Napier on this night, play and distribute with such speed. You watch him pick up nine assists, find guys like Kyle Kuric and Chris Smith open for the threes and you see what UConn is not getting.